Bits of Life 2

F-16 Words-475

in the writings of Alexander Pope, which make us aware of the of the stuff of which humans are made and take lessons of life and man.

After the Alexander Pope and his contemporaries, the era of Neoclassical rationality, order, and industrialization, there is a visible change toward emotion, individualism, and nature.

In this context, the publication of Lyrical Ballads initiated by French Revolution(1798) gains significance. Literary work of this period shows a marked inclination to subjective experience, high emotion and emphasis on the sublime nature.

When Samuel Tailor Coleridge published his Lyrical Ballads, a collection of lyrical poems by William Wordsworth and Coleridge himself, the critical reception was modest.

But in 1800 with the addition of a Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, it became a landmark.

The preface is an important essay because it changes the course of English Literature and Poetry. It marked the beginning of Romantic Movement in English Literature.

The Preface to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads was written by William Wordsworth.. It is important for the literature students because it is the manifesto in which the main features of the Romantic Movement were recorded. They are briefly,

Ordinary life is the best subject for poetry.
Everyday language is best suited for poetry.
Expression of feeling is more important than action or plot.
"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" that "takes its origin from emotion, recollected in tranquility."

We have learned that the first generation of the Romantic movement poets include,

William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Blake’s poem “The Tyger” is familiar to many for its visual imagery and God’s intent in its cruelty. Words, images and symbols are notable.

William Blake’s "The Lamb" (from Songs of Innocence) and "The Tyger" (from Songs of Experience) are contrasting companion poems exploring the duality of creation, divine nature, and the human soul. "The Lamb" symbolizes purity, gentle creation, and simple faith, while "The Tyger" embodies fear, power, and the complex, dangerous, or mysterious aspects of existence.

Songs of innocence and experience show the “contrary states of human mind.”

Among poems listed in the Lyrical Ballads, we read William Wordsworth’s “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey". It was a detailed study for our class.

Soon we got absorbed with the thoughts of the poet as he recalls his previous visit and its effect on his mind and life. The full title of this poem is,

““Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798.””
He clearly remembers the tranquil rustic scenery and murmuring of waters of the river as well as the “steep and lofty cliffs” which have left a deep impress upon his “thoughts of more deep seclusion”;

Some much remembered lines are,

““look on nature, not as in the hour /Of